Hi all,
We have a strange situation and we need some help. Jake, our 3 Ĺ year old Dane, has been having some leg issues we canít figure out. A few months ago he began holding up his right front leg. He and our other Dane Ava play pretty rough sometimes and we figured he got tripped up or something. It went away within a few days and he was fine until about 2 weeks ago. On one of our walks, he began limping on the same leg and would hold it up for me to rub. We took him to the vet and they worked him over pretty good. They figured he had a strained muscle or something. We put him on Derramaxx. He was only getting one a day and no more limping. So we were beginning to feel good about it and then, a few days ago, he woke up from sleeping, stood and cried and held up his leg. I rub it and he is fine. He walks, runs, eats. It just comes and goes. Then recently, he held up his front left leg and last night his back right leg. Ava had pano as a pup and it reminds of it a bit but he is too old for that, right?

As I said, he is eating fine but his drinking is way down. He may get one or two drinks a day. Nothing else has changed. The odd thing is, even when it was bothering him, he would bend down to sniff, putting all of his weight on the front right leg and this does not bother him. He is a very tall guy and about 170 pounds. Having all of that pressure on his leg didnít hurt him. It doesnít hurt him to move it or touch it.

So itís either an injury that wonít heal (but why the other legs now?) or maybe cramps from not drinking enough?

This guy means the world to us and we need to figure something out. X-rays may be next but our vet doesnít think this is a bone issue and we donít want to put him through that if we donít have to. Has anyone seen or heard of this type of behavior before? Any help would be much appreciated. Sorry for the long post.

I would do X-rays. You should rule out shoulder & elbow problems. Hopefully it is nothing, but I would want to know why he is limping. You should start him on glucosamine also. I give my boy Synovi G3 chews, but there are lots of options out there. Good luck, & keep us posted.

Oh wow, my dog just experienced the same thing. I hope its not the same thing, but here is Dalia's story.

She is about 2.5 years old. About 10-12 months ago she started lifting one of her back legs. At the time i noticed that she seemed more stiff when she would get up from laying down, and after she had walked on that leg for a few minutes the limp would ago away. I called my vet, and they told me to just keep an eye on her and see how she does. Sure enough a few days latter the limp was gone and she seemed fine. So we thought it was just a strain. 10 months later in December of 2008, the limp came back again. I was about to board her for the holidays, so i took her to the vet just to make sure that it was nothing serious. Sure enough she wasn't really limping when we got to the clinic, so the vet just gave some tramadol and send us home. They told me to keep an eye on it again. I kept on checking with the boarding facility, but they claimed that she was not favoring any leg. A couple of days after i brought her home the limp came back. Now here is the weird thing about it. She was limping with her left back leg but then a couple of days later the right back leg started swelling around her ankle. I made an appointment with my vet for the following monday, 3 days away. Saturday midday i noticed that the front leg started swelling as well. By Sunday morning she refused to get up, eat or drink, and every time i touched her she cried like i was killing her. No need to say i run to the emergency clinic with her. Besides the obvious swelling and pain, when we got there they also found that she had very high fever.They end up keeping her for a couple of days. They put her on a cocktail of sedatives to control her pain and gave her treatment for both infectious diseases and autoimmune. They run a bunch of tests (blood, urine, and the fluid the got out of her joints) only to confirm they initial suspicion of immune mediated polyarthritis. Now what the vet explained to me is that polyarthritis (meaning it affects more an one joint) is just a symptom of an autoimmune disease. Which in her case he thinks its lupus because of the unexplainable mouth sores she has been getting for the past year or so. He put her on a steroid treatment that he wants to slowly stop in 4-6 months, but told me that most likely i will have other problems with her in the future. He ordered no more shots for her because we dont want to stimulate her immune system, no explosive exercise because now her joints are prone to this and no stress. This happened 2 weeks ago. The swelling went completely away within a few days and now she is doing great at home. I believe what confirmed his diagnosis was the test that he run on the fluid that he got from her joints.

I would recommend to ask for an infectious disease panel on top of the x-rays. Keep in mind that some diseases like Lyme disease can cause inflammation of the joints as well. I x-rays and disease test come back negative there is only autoimmune left.I wish your baby the best of luck that it is not autoimmune. Keep us posted.

Thanks for the thoughts. I think we are dealing with two issues. Jake is not drinking enough and he injured his leg. We are going to keep an eye on it for a few days and see how he does. We are starting him on some supplements. Not sure why we waited on that. We'll let you know if anything happens. The last few days he has looked real good, except when he saw a rabbit while standing in the back of my Tahoe and jumped out to chase it. Thanks again!

Jake has been off the Derramaxx now for a while and we started him on the Synovi G3 chews (3 with dinner and 2 with breakfast.) He has been doing great and has not been limping. We let him run a bit a few times and no problems. Then last night, after a short walk all four legs seemed to be cramping up at once. It was very weird. Whatever leg he was trying to step with, he would hold up and as I rubbed him, you could feel how tight he was. It was almost seizure like. Then seconds later, he was fine and came in, got a drink and went to sleep. No problems this morning. We are taking him back in but I have no idea how they can check him for anything. Maybe some blood work or something, I just donít know what to do. He is eating fine, no swelling, has energy and is normal in all ways other than these odd occurrences.

Hi all,
I wrote a while back describing some leg issues our boy Jake is having. A lot of what's happening seems to be pointing to wobblers. He has never really moved well and has always been afraid of certain floors, so we kind of saw it coming.

Our vet started him on pred. about 5 weeks ago. We are in the process of weaning him off and he is down to a half a day (10mg.) We also started chiropractic work. I am not a big believer in it but we had a wobbler a few years ago and it seemed to help her.

Since being on the pred. he has been his old self and looks great. I know it's the steroids but still nice to see him respond so well. The new thing that's concerning us is, both of his back legs have been shaking while standing. Not all the time and it moves from leg to leg. It doesn't seem to bother him. Has anyone seen this with their Danes? I'm wondering if this is the meds or his condition. Thanks!

Is it like a tremor that happens every once in a while or is it continuous? Dalia has been on pred ever since january too for autoimmune, and I have noticed a tremor on her legs as well. It usually happens when she doesnít have full weight on the leg, and it's pretty short. It moves from leg to leg too. I mentioned it to the vet and he didnt not really say anything about the medication having that affect on them. I started mine on glucosamine, and i want to say that she is not doing it as often anymore, but it could be just me because my husband says she still does.